This study examines the relationship between the functions and patterns of language choice in EFL classrooms in a Kuwaiti primary school. It applies the overall order model, specifically the medium of classroom interaction, to identify three patterns of language choice: an English monolingual medium, an Arabic monolingual medium and a bilingual…

Stimulated by studies on South Korean students' early and later-on study abroad and Japanese companies' practice of hiring monolingual college students, the present literature-based discussion advances the knowledge of commonalities and distinctiveness between the two nations that manifest in either a textbook-case or a non-linear relationship…

Previous research examining the reading achievement of immigrant children has often grouped English learners into one broad category, referred to as ELs, thereby creating an "either-or" dichotomy regarding whether or not these students need school language supports. The present study examined the theoretical contention regarding the…

The simple view of reading (SVR) model proposes that reading comprehension is the product of word decoding and language comprehension, and that both components make independent contributions to reading skill (Gough & Tunmer, 1986). The model posits that there are good readers and three types of poor readers--dyslexic, hyperlexic, and garden…

In this study, we analysed the relationships between word decoding, vocabulary knowledge, meta-cognitive knowledge and reading comprehension in low-achieving adolescents and examined whether the strength of these relationships differed between Grade 7 and 9 students and between monolingual and bilingual students. Tests were administered to 328…

Developing literacy in two languages can be challenging for young bilingual children. This longitudinal study investigates the effects of bilingualism in the spelling strategies of English-Portuguese speaking children. A total of 88 six- to-seven-year-old bilinguals and monolinguals were followed during one academic year and data gathered on a…

The study aims to highlight the representations that university students have about plurilingualism, in order to research how they can develop plurilingual competences in an essentially monolingual French academic setting. It is based on a survey of 684 students enrolled in two foreign language programmes across two year levels (first and fourth…

Dual-language learner (DLL) children typically learn to write while still learning English, with vocabulary appearing to be a particularly vulnerable domain. This study investigates how a reduced English lexicon impacts English writing in DLL children. Participants were 100 Spanish-speaking DLLs and 100 of their monolingual classmates in first…

This contribution gives an account of the results of an action research in which a task-based plurilingual programme was implemented with postgraduate students of Foreign Languages and International Business. Using a mixed-methods approach, combining questionnaire, interview and observation data, we sought to explore the degree to which the…

Learners of English might be familiar with several online monolingual dictionaries that are not necessarily the best choices for the English as Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) context. Although these monolingual online dictionaries contain definitions, pronunciation guides, and other elements normally found in general-use dictionaries, they are…

In this examination of monolingual and multilingual pedagogies I draw on literature that explores the position of English globally and in the curriculum for English. I amplify the discussion with data from a project exploring how teachers responded to the arrival of Polish children in their English classrooms following Poland's entry to the…

We present the case study of MB--a bilingual child with Down syndrome (DS) who speaks Russian (first language [L1]) and English (second language [L2]) and has learned to read in two different alphabets with different symbol systems. We demonstrate that, in terms of oral language, MB is as proficient in Russian as English, with a mild advantage for…

Explanations for the well-documented second language (L2) learning challenge of the English regular past include verb semantics (Bardovi-Harlig, 2000), phonetic properties (Goad, White, & Steele, 2003), and frequency factors (Collins, Trofimovich, White, Cardoso, & Horst, 2009). Difficulty perceiving past-tense morphology (i.e., hearing…

This study investigated the effect of learning English (L2) on learning to read and spell connected texts accurately in Arabic (L1). The author selected a sample of 83 (38 males and 45 females; 45 bilinguals and 38 monolinguals) native Arabic-speaking fourth-graders in Egypt. Students completed the author-developed Oral Reading Accuracy Measure…

As stated by Valero-Garcés (2006, p. 38), the new scenario including public service providers and users who are not fluent in the language used by the former has opened up new ways of linguistic and cultural mediation in current multicultural and multilingual societies. As a consequence, there is an ever increasing need for translators and…